Transformational Education

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and students of Rutgers speak of the tremendous opportunity the University offers and its revolutionary spirit. Rutgers student, Shane Fuller speaks eloquently of the Leadership Course at Rutgers, a course which “changed his life” and “made him realize you really can do anything.” The Erhard-Jensen Ontological/Phenomenological initiative supports this leadership course being taught at Rutgers and at over 25 Universities around the world. The Initiative is committed to supporting faculty members to lead this course. For more information…

The Evolution of Transformational Education

In transformational learning we seek to become aware of our context of interpretations and beliefs, and to be critically reflective of our underlying assumptions. In transformational learning, our prevailing worldview and frames of reference (which are almost always invisible to ourselves) are uncovered thereby enabling us to reconstruct them such that more clarity and power is available to us.

In creating leaders we employ the ontological discipline (from the Latin ontologia “science of being”). The ontological model of leader and leadership opens up and reveals the actual nature of being when one is being a leader and opens up and reveals the source of one’s actions when exercising leadership. And, ontology’s associated phenomenological methodology (explained in 2. below) provides actionable access to what has been opened up. The being of being a leader and the actions of the effective exercise of leadership can be accessed, researched, and taught either:

1. as being and action are observed and commented on “from the stands”, specifically as these are observed by someone, and then described, interpreted and explained (third-person theory of), or

2. as being and action are actually experienced “on the court”, specifically as these are actually lived real-time (first-person experience of).

As a formal discipline, the “on the court” method of accessing being and action (that is, as being and action are actually lived) is named phenomenology.

In short, an epistemological mastery (a from-the-stands mastery) of a subject leaves one knowing. An ontological mastery (an on-the-court mastery) of a subject leaves one being. Of course the students themselves do not need to study ontology; they only require the access to being and the source of action that is provided by the ontological perspective. And, they don’t need to study phenomenology; they only need to be provided with the actionable pathway to the being of being a leader and the actions of effective leadership made available by the phenomenological methodology.